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31 January 2011

Ferrari became the first team to launch their 2011 challenger on Friday, as Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa took the wraps of the F150. Ferrari hope the new car - named to mark the 150th anniversary of Italy’s unification - will return the Scuderia to championship glory after they missed out on both 2010 titles. We'll of course see a lot more of this car once the F1 season starts.
Full story here.

A few years ago, Ferrari and Shell celebrated 60 years of collaboration by producing probably the best commercial to ever hit TV. Crews shot in Hong Kong, Monaco, New York, Rio, Rome, Sydney and London using F1 Ferraris from progressing generations. At the time, it was rumoured to be the most expensive commercial ever made.
Sure, the two companies are trying to sell you something in the two-minute spot (at £1.30+ a litre at the moment...), but this video is more than that. It’s art. To a petrolhead and a Tifosi like myself, it's beautiful.
As the cars jump from generation to generation, (OK there's a gap as Ferrari﻿ used Agip fuel from '74 to '95, so no cars from those years) the revs get higher and higher… BUT, somehow the tradition of speed isn’t lost from one to another.
I haven't seen this for ages, but with the new F150 out, now's the time for a revisit.

27 January 2011

"Perhaps you’ve heard some rumors of the fate of the Alfa Romeo Museum in Arese, to the effect that Fiat plans to tear down the building and create a different structure—and not a new museum. This would in effect get around the recent government edict to protect the Alfa Museum and the cars in the collection, as the edict did not mention the building itself. The fate of the cars in the Museum, which itself would no longer exist physically, would then be in jeopardy, sold, or moved to Turin rather than remain in their native city."

Go to veloce Today's webste and learn where to sign alfaromeoarese.com's petition.

Pagani's new model to replace the Zonda, (which means 'wind' in the aboriginal language of Quechua). Engine will be an AMG-built Merc 6.0 twin-turbo V12 engine with over 700bhp. It's said to be capable of near 230 mph. The official world debut will be at the Geneve Auto Salon in March. Styling looks like a more resolved version of the Zonda's, I have a feeling some will think it unadventurous after the bonkers Zonda, but I feel it's a sign of a company building on an already great product.
From here and here.

26 January 2011

While everyone's ooing and ahhing over the new Stratos, let's dig out one that only the racing geeks remember.

When the Fiat group favoured the Fiat 131 for rallying, Lancia also built two Group 5 turbocharged 'silhouette' Stratos for closed-track endurance racing. These cars failed against the Porsche 935s on closed tracks, but proved successful in hybrid events. While they failed in the Tour de France Automobile, one of these cars won the 1976 Giro d'Italia Automobilistico, an Italian counterpart of the Tour de France Automobile. Unfortunately one of the cars was destroyed in Zeltweg, when it caught fire due to overheating problems. The last surviving car would win the Giro d'Italia event again before it was shipped to Japan to compete in the Fuji Speedway based Formula Silhouette series, which was never raced. The car would then be sold and reside in the Matsuda Collection before then being sold to the renowned collector of Stratos', Christian Hrabalek, a car designer and the founder of Fenomenon Ltd, who has the largest Lancia Stratos Collection in the world. He has 11 unique Stratos cars, including the fluorescent red 1971 factory prototype and the 1977 Safari Rally car. His interest in the car led to the development of the Fenomenon Stratos in 2005.
More about the Group 5 Stratos here and here.

"This was a combination of drinking, leftover race car parts, and a winter beater. It runs great; it's hard to steer and harder to stop." says the owner, Chris Letorneau. The bone-stock 440ci was topped with an appropriate 6-71 huffer overdriven 22 percent, and with 2.76:1 axle gears out back, bet it smokes 'em a long, long way.